


Wager

by deathwailart



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Bonding, Female Character of Color, Female Friendship, Gambling, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2030598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luce and Isabela like to play cards but it's less about the cards and more about time together away from everyone else.</p>
<p>Written for the 30 day drabble challenge: wager</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wager

If pressed, Luce's sure that when push comes to shove, Isabela is probably her favourite person in Kirkwall. Isabela understands what it's like to be considered the exotic girl the way Luce was back in Lothering, especially when she started to glamour her hair – nothing wrong with her thick brown curls but she likes how she looks when it's gold because, and Isabela is the only person that doesn't laugh when she tells her, that was the only gold she actually had that wasn't the sovereigns she always had to spend as soon as she got them. Isabela who knows what it's like to be eyed like a piece of meat and they always have on another's backs wherever they go.  
  
Small wonder that they usually end up playing cards together.  
  
It's never really about the coin or whatever else at stake – often the coin is boring because Luce has plenty and they all get a good share of whatever they get from the jobs they follow Luce on and that's what the group nights of wicked grace and diamondback are about. Sometimes the wager is something the other one has to do, like a game of dares mixed in with it, like doing a specific sort of dance on the table, drawing Elthina into some sort of conversation about a topic of the other one's choice or trying to innocently ask her something that's not so innocent at all. Or the time Luce ended up streaking through Hightown because they were three sheets to the wind and it sounded like the best dare of her life. But usually, it's not really about the cards. It's about her and Isabela actually having time to catch up away from everything else. She knows Isabela has been teaching Merrill how to play cards, what to gamble, what _not_ to gamble, how to cheat and how to bluff and Luce learned how to play from her father and all his friends and she's pretty damn good at it because it was a nice extra bit of coin.  
  
Isabela is the only one who can see through it though.  
  
Even if there was that gap where Luce felt so achingly alone – Merrill absorbed by her mirror and barely ever home, the house so achingly quiet without mother and with Bethany in the Circle, Isabela avoiding her after that whole mess that saw the mantle of champion forced on Luce without her consent – she and Isabela have an understanding about things. Isabela knows what it's like to have to make a joke and smile because there's absolutely no other option when you're expected to just shoulder everything that comes your way. She's the first one to come and check if Luce is _actually_ okay when she's muddling through with jokes that tend to draw frowns or a mutter of _Hawke_ if they're apparently a bit too inappropriate even for her and that's been happening more and more lately given how much she just wants to grab all the friends that want to leave and run away from Kirkwall, springing Bethany in the process.  
  
"You know," Isabela says as she shuffles the deck for the next hand, "you really need to come sailing with me when you get bored of Kirkwall and decide that you actually don't want to play the hero. You can bring Merrill, I know Fenris would like to sail where he doesn't have to hide on the ship, we'll just keep them apart if we need to. You haven't lived until you've had an Antivan massage, they treat their women like the most precious pearls." Luce goes a little bit boneless hearing that because oh it's so tempting, it's just that strange sense of always having to do the right thing and always putting herself last that won't ever go away, the necessity of childhood that left a mark that's always going to be there. "It's absolute bliss, some gorgeous Antivan man or woman, scented oil that I think has something in it, I don't know if it's just a spice or if it's magic, candles, always some very best brandy before you start."  
  
"Keep that up and I'm going to be a puddle on the floor you'll have to deal with."  
  
"I mean it Luce," her name sounds better when Isabela says it but maybe it's because they're speaking Rivaini the way they do when it's just them, the way her and her father did when it was just them and it's probably part of why she loves Isabela and was so hurt when the pirate avoided her after the Arishok confrontation. "You deserve it. Even if you didn't, you're allowed and entitled to being indulged and pampered."  
  
"Subtle Isabela," Luce remarks, giving her a very gentle kick. Isabela just laughs but her smile is soft, the hint of concern maybe on Luce and Fenris can pick out amongst their companions. "But...well just keep a cabin for Merrill and I."  
  
"I wouldn't dream of doing anything less, now," she deals them a hand each, settling back, "I dare you...having to confess all your most lurid dreams to the oldest biddy in the Chantry."  
  
It takes Luce a good ten minutes to stop laughing so she can see that bet and raise her own.


End file.
